The Orientalist and the Ghost (18 page)

One afternoon, returning from a trip to the ice-cream vendor, they befriended Malay twin sisters, whose father owned the furniture shop down the road. Adam
has
forgotten their names, but remembers they were twelve and a half and spoke fluent English in playful lilting tones. Though non-identical, the twins had the same squishy noses (that looked as though they’d been launched by catapult and landed
splat!
in the middle of their faces) and identical scars on their upper lips left by corrective cleft-palate surgery. Behind their backs Adam called them ‘the Harelip Twins’, and though they were quite ugly he liked to tease them and pull on the thick ropes of plaits dangling down their backs. The twins left for school every morning at seven thirty and were home again at one fifteen, when their father put them to work polishing furniture in his shop. Adam and Julia would call for them after two, and with a nod from their father the twins would join them in the street. Adam and Julia tried to initiate the Harelip Twins into their secret world of gangsters and policemen, but the twins preferred gentler, unimaginative pastimes such as hopscotch and hand-clapping games that Adam hated (though he always mooched around, partly because he had nothing better to do and partly to bask in what he imagined to be the Harelip Twins’ love rivalry for him). The twins had had a strict religious upbringing and displayed an innocence that shocked Adam and Julia (who’d chant
fuck
thirty times in a row just to frighten them). Adam and Julia taught them about London, bragging of gangland shootings, teen pregnancies and kids stabbing one another up at school. The twins, who’d also been spoon-fed fear from an early age, responded with the cautionary tales of
Kuala
Lumpur, warning Adam and Julia about the kidnappers lurking around every corner, ready to bundle people into sacks, to be butchered in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants.

After three weeks of bed rest Frances was still exhausted, surfacing for meals puffy and pillowcreased, her hair mussed up as she stared at the children in mild detachment. Her lethargy rubbed off on Adam, who began to devote hours to lying on his bed.

‘C’mon, get up!’ Julia shouted. ‘How can you just lie there? You’re becoming like Mum!’

‘Get lost, Jules. Go and play with the Harelip Twins.’

‘I will! It’s much better without you there being sarcastic anyway!’

His sister gone, Adam stagnated, not even moving to scratch an itch. He stared at the dust glittering in the blades of light coming in through chinks in the window shutters, every minute suffused by the scent of furniture polish and the ticking of the clock. The city became a fog of sound: of horns beeping, the
put, put, put
of motorscooters, and foreign shouts. Sometimes, out of nowhere, panic would charge up in his chest. How long were things going to be this way? For the next month? The one after that? Frances’s nurse uniform, washed and ironed by Madame Tay, was hanging in her cupboard. Adam had a strong feeling she was never going to wear it again; that she’d found her true vocation vegetating on the bed. It was all wrong. It was wrong that they’d taken off without telling Jack. It was wrong that he and Julia had missed weeks of
school
. It was wrong that their mother had become a selfish invalid. Adam blamed Malaysia. Once they were back in England, Frances would be back to her old self.

During the fourth week of the holiday Julia’s battle against Frances kicked off. She waited until lunchtime, when Frances had left the safety of her bedroom and had no choice but to listen.

‘Muuum …’

Frances ignored her, slurped a noodle between her lips.

‘Muuum … Muuum …’

‘What?’

‘When are we going home?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can we go back next week?’

‘No.’

‘The week after that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why not? Why can’t we go back?’

‘Julia, shut up.’

‘But what about school? Me and Adam have to go to school. It’s against the law if we don’t go.’

‘She’s right,’ Adam chipped in. ‘It’s illegal.’

‘It won’t kill you,’ said Frances, ‘to miss a few weeks.’

‘Are you going to divorce Dad?’ Julia asked.

‘No.’

‘’Cos I don’t mind if you are. I don’t mind seeing him only at the weekends. But you should go back to England and tell him.’

Noodles dangled down Frances’s chin. She slurped them up and chewed.

‘It’s so unfair …’ Julia whined. ‘I miss Dad. You’re just keeping us here because
you
want to be here, though me and Adam have fuck all to do! It’s bang out of order!’

‘Julia, shut up. I have a headache.’

‘You always have a headache. Are you sick or something?’

‘Yes. I’m sick.’

‘Well, you’d better go to the doctor and sort it out, then!’

As Julia argued with Frances, Madame Tay sneaked stir-fried green beans into Julia’s rice bowl. She’d got in three chopstick loads before Julia noticed. She glowered at Madame Tay.

‘I don’t want any!’ she hissed, shoving the bowl away.

‘For Christ’s sake, Julia! Don’t speak to Ayah like that.’

‘I don’t care. She pisses me off,’ said Julia. ‘She’s an evil cow. And so are you for making us stay here. I want to go home!’

Tear ducts detonated and Julia thumped the table and shrieked:
You’ve kidnapped us! I miss my dad!
She stormed up to the roof-terrace kitchen, slamming every door and banging up the stairs as loudly as someone three times her size. Then she stomped back down again, not wanting her fury to go unheard. By then Frances was locked away in her bedroom and, angered by her hasty retreat, Julia hurled her weight at the door,
screaming
that Frances was a kidnapper and child abuser and a shit mother. Julia attacked the door for half an hour, blonde hair flying as she punched and kicked, throwing her body about as if she didn’t care what bones she broke as she haemorrhaged fury. Back in London Frances wouldn’t have put up with five minutes of Julia’s tantrum. She’d have smacked her and sent her packing. But things were different in Malaysia.
What are you looking at? Piss off!
Julia shrieked at Adam, before she crashed, weeping, on her hands and knees. Adam was impressed. He’d never seen such a savage tantrum before. He never knew she could be so psychotic. But after a while Julia’s howling got on his nerves and he went to call for the Harelip Twins. When he returned, several hours later, Julia was still crouched outside their mother’s room, but pathetic as a kitten, quivering with the residual spasms of sobs. When Madame Tay clashed saucepan lids to announce supper, the bedroom door opened and Frances barely glanced at her daughter as she stepped around her into the hall.

Julia kept it up for the next two days, harassing Frances at lunch, before flying into a self-destructive rage and spending the afternoon screaming and battering the bedroom door. On the third day Julia changed tack, and after lunch chased Frances into the bedroom before the door could be locked. Adam heard them fighting in there, the mattress springs creaking as Julia bounced on the bed, Frances shouting at her to get down. Adam heard Julia scream and went to the hall. Frances was pushing Julia out of the door, a firm but
weary
expression on her face, and Julia lashed out at her mother, gouging her cheek. With a cry of pain Frances shoved Julia, forcefully, so she fell on her bum and banged her head against the hallway wall. Though the violence frightened him, Julia’s look of shock was so comical that Adam laughed. Concerned she’d seriously hurt her daughter, Frances stepped forward to get a better look, and Julia sprang up and charged at her. Frances quickly recoiled, slamming the bedroom door shut just as Julia grabbed hold of the door jamb. There was a moment of silent shock, before Julia screamed; not her usual exhibitionist, temper-tantrum scream, but the genuine bewildered scream of a child in pain. Frances opened the door and Julia crumpled into a ball of pain, gripping her mangled fingers as she rolled on the floor. There was blood dripping everywhere, and Frances knelt down, all over Julia, her eyes wide and frantic, the most awake Adam had seen her in weeks.
Julia, Julia, Julia
, she begged,
show me your fingers
…

They took Julia to the hospital in a taxi, a towel sopping up the blood from her injury, and when they brought her back late that evening half the index finger of her left hand was gone and the rest were splinted and bandaged up, so her hand was like a swollen paw.

Frances bought Julia ice cream. She told Julia she was very sorry about her finger. And Julia, being Julia, forgave her. But when she asked when they were going back to England, Frances still had no reply.

13

IT WAS 20 FEBRUARY 1969
, the date of Frances’s seventeenth birthday. They’d skipped afternoon lessons that day (after forging notes claiming a dentist appointment and the death of a great aunt) and gone to the Lake Gardens’ butterfly sanctuary, returning to Frances’s at six o’clock, grubby and grass-stained, damp blouses hanging over skirt waistbands. Mr Milnar was home early from the office, and the parlour floorboards creaked as he seesawed in the rocking chair. He stood up as the girls entered, folding a newspaper dense with Chinese hieroglyphics. The sight of Mr Milnar alarmed Sally, who feared their truancy had been rumbled.
We must destroy the evidence!
she thought, glancing at Frances’s jar of butterflies (a glass mortuary of winged corpses picked off the sanctuary floor because they were too pretty to go to waste). Mr Milnar, however, did not seem cross.

‘Happy birthday, Frances,’ he said.

Sally was confused. Frances hadn’t mentioned it was her birthday.

‘We’re going to have dinner at the club tonight to celebrate.’

‘Oh, why?’ scowled Frances.

‘Because it’s your birthday and this is what we do every year, that’s why,’ said Mr Milnar. ‘And it’s too late to do otherwise now, because Madame Tay has gone to see her friends and hasn’t cooked us any dinner. The table is booked for seven. You’ve ten minutes to go and scrub up. And your, er … friend too.’

Mr Milnar sat in the rocking chair and shook open his Chinese newspaper to signal the end of discussion.

As the girls went to the bathroom to wash, Sally whispered: ‘You never told me it was your birthday! Why didn’t you say so?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Frances said. ‘It’s probably not even my birthday today. My father picked this date because my mother wasn’t sure when I was born. My birthday could’ve been last Tuesday, for all I know.’

Not knowing your own birthday? Sally had never heard of such a thing.

‘How can your mother not know when you were born? She was there, wasn’t she?’

‘She was living in the jungle and lost track of the days.’

‘What was she doing in the jungle?’

Frances shrugged. ‘Yuck, the club …’ she said. ‘I hate that phoney place.’

The girls splashed tap water on sunburnt faces and combed their messy hair. Frances refused to change out of her sweat-rag of a blouse, declaring that her father could like it or lump it (he did neither – he didn’t notice), and when they were ready Mr Milnar called a taxi, which let them off outside the Moorish domes of the Malaysian Supreme Court. The sun was setting as they crossed Merdeka Square, the sky blushing crimson behind the Royal Selangor Club’s mock Tudor façade. Sally hadn’t been to the club before, but its reputation had led her to imagine the ladies and gentlemen of the Kuala Lumpur élite swanking around, chomping cigars and drinking out of champagne flutes. She was rather disappointed by the balding expats playing bridge in the lounge. The restaurant, a sea of white tables laid with silver cutlery and damask napkins fanned in accordion pleats, was empty but for a woman drinking alone at the bar, her elegant back to the rest of the room. The head waiter, a Malay with Brylcreemed hair, hopped about like a rabbit trussed up in a waistcoat and bow-tie, taking Mr Milnar’s jacket and pulling out chairs for the girls.

‘
Tuan
Milnar, always a pleasure,’ he cried. ‘Who are these charming young ladies you have here tonight?’

‘My daughter Frances and her friend. It’s my daughter’s birthday.’

The head waiter flashed Sally an obsequious smile. ‘Happy birthday, Miss Milnar. How old are you today?’

‘No,’ Mr Milnar corrected impatiently, ‘the other one.’

‘Oh! I do beg your pardon! Happy birthday!’

Frances gave the waiter a shadow of a polite smile, then opened the menu. Sally watched the birthday girl’s eyes flickering across the list of appetizers, the crooked parting in her hair shining in the light of the chandelier. Mr Milnar was reading the menu too, and Sally took the opportunity to admire his pale Scandinavian eyelashes and his splendid hump-backed nose. How strange and nerve-racking it was to be sitting mere inches from the object of her feverish daydreams (since the day she’d met Mr Milnar in the Kuan Ti temple, Sally’s imagination had churned out every possible romantic scenario leading up to Mr Milnar’s eventual marriage proposal, gallantly bent down on one knee in the Lake Gardens’ Pavilion). The only family likeness Sally could see, as her gaze shifted from father to daughter, was the shared look of arrogance. Frances smouldered at the menu, as if selecting a dish from the high-priced array was a torment. She dug her elbows into the tablecloth like a bad-tempered child, and Sally felt a twinge of annoyance.
Sit up properly!
she wanted to say;
Wipe that pout off your face!
The years of expensive school fees Mr Milnar had paid in the hopes of moulding an agreeable young lady out of Frances had evidently gone to waste.